Rita Woodard, Tulare County’s registrar of voters, released a statement Saturday regarding the issues that surrounded long lines at the polls, late results and high voter turnout.

Here’s the statement:

Tulare County Registrar of Voters, Rita A. Woodard, would like to assure Tulare County Registered Voters of her stewardship of the ballots cast on Election Day. Every vote will be processed as allowed by law and the election will be certified by December 6, 2016.

First off, I would like to thank the approximately 700 volunteers who took the time to work on Election Day at the 55 polling sites throughout our county. Without them Election Day would not be possible.

Voter enthusiasm was high on Election Day with a record number of voters coming to our polling sites to vote. It is wonderful we had so many people who wanted to vote this election! There was a record number of last minute voter registrations leading to a record number of 154,003 registered voters in the county.

A large last minute turn out to the polls, a longer than usual ballot, and changes in the election law all lead to the extra-long lines at the polling sites. On my visits to the polling sites on Election Day I found most voters were very nice and patiently waiting for their turn to vote.

Provisional ballots were cast at record levels. At last count there were 10,900 for this election. This is up from 2012 of 9,097. An increase of 1,803. Per Election Code 14310 “At all elections, a voter claiming to be properly registered, but whose qualification or entitlement to vote cannot be immediately established …shall be entitled to vote a provisional ballot”. This includes any vote by mail voter who may have misplaced their ballot. This process used many more ballots at polling sites resulting in additional touch screen voting machines being deployed.

Election night results were later than usual because they cannot be posted until the last voter has finished voting at all polling sites in the county (Election Code 15152). Additionally, any voter in line at 8 PM must be given sufficient time to enable them to vote before the poll closes (Election Code 14401). That was around 10:30 PM at Grace Community Church in Visalia. The first election results were posted by 10:33 PM.

Ballots are ordered at least 60 days before an election. Updates to voter registration in the last 60 days before this election was up from 20,738 in 2012 to 34,702 in 2016. That is an unusually large increase of almost 14,000 after the ballots were ordered.

There were changes with districts this election. Many districts went from having election-at-large, where all voters could vote for all the candidates, to election by area. Election by area candidates are nominated and voted on by only the voters in their area. These changes added to the number of mail ballot precincts in the county.

I am aware there were issues on Election Day. I and my staff will do a full review of the processes upon completion of the certification to ensure a smoother future voting experience for all.